A Necessary Evil(27)

Mollie sobbed again, her shoulders heaving as she wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them tightly to her chest.

“There, there,” the man said. “Don’t cry. I promise I’ll make it quick. I’m not a sick bastard like your grandfather. Now, it’s time for me to deliver this message to Pops. You stay here and be a good girl.” Mollie didn’t look up at him, but could hear his boots shuffling across the floor toward the steps. Then they stopped, and there was a moment of bone chilling silence. She looked up at the man and saw he was glaring at her. “If you try anything stupid, well, let’s just say I’m not above breaking my promise to kill you quickly.”

Mollie watched through her tears as he turned and climbed the stairs. There was no hope left for her. She was going to die. And all because of something her grandfather had done in a moment of blind rage forty years ago. Though she could understand his compulsion for revenge, Mollie had lost all compassion for him. She knew if she ever did make it out of The Vault, she would never be able to forget what she’d learned about her grandfather today. And she would never, ever be able to forgive him.





Chapter 14




Frankie



He’d been driving around the outskirts of Fayette County for nearly an hour, searching for Mollie’s red car, when he received a call from Bruno back at Trifecta advising him someone had delivered a package with his name on it. Knowing it was likely from Mollie’s kidnapper, he’d turned around and was headed back to the restaurant.

Though he was no longer a God-fearing man, Frankie prayed to whomever was listening that the package didn’t contain one of Mollie’s ears, or a finger, or any other body part, for that matter. He’d had to send similar messages in the past, though not often, as he’d tried to keep his hands from getting bloody ever since the day he’d killed Julian McAllister. Those duties were usually reserved for certain employees, like Bruno.

Knowing Julian’s son was the one who had taken Mollie made it impossible for Frankie not to think about what he’d done back in 1979, though he’d spent forty years trying to forget. He didn’t regret killing Addie’s murderer, but he hadn’t simply put a bullet between his eyes.

Frankie had spent the months after Addie’s murder shaking down every lowlife scum in the central Kentucky area until he’d finally gotten his hands on a rat who was all too eager to tell him a man named Julian McAllister had employed him in the past, and he’d once confided in this rat about how he loved to collect pretty young girls.

It had only taken a couple more weeks for Frankie to track Julian down to a gym he’d owned at the time in the heart of downtown Lexington. He’d watched the creep for weeks, waiting for the perfect opportunity to nab him without being noticed. Though Frankie had only just turned nineteen, he’d been working out religiously and would, at the very least, be an equal match for the older man. Especially with the large handgun he’d bought from a friend.

The opportunity finally presented itself one night in late March, nearly a year after Addie’s death. Frankie was parked behind the gym, waiting for his moment, when Julian had opened the back door, two large bags of trash in his hands. Frankie’s pulse had quickened, and adrenaline coursed through his veins when he realized the man was finally alone and there was no one around to witness what he was about to do.

Frankie slipped slowly from his car and surreptitiously snuck up behind Julian, who was whistling as he threw the bags of garbage up and over a fence into the bins. With the gun shoved against the back of his head, Frankie was able to overpower the older man and drag him back to his waiting car. He’d forced Julian into the passenger seat, and within seconds he was on the road, headed to the abandoned warehouse he’d already staked out months prior.

At first, Julian had been obstinate and way too proud to admit he was scared shitless, but then Frankie had tied Julian to a chair—legs, chest, and arms—with heavy rope and covered his mouth with industrial strength duct tape. Julian’s eyes went wide as saucers and sweat poured out of every pore as he thrashed about, trying to free himself from the restraints. Frankie made it clear to Julian exactly why he was there and informed him he would never see his baby boy again. Then, to Julian’s astonishment, this big, scary man, who had killed dozens of young girls, had begun to snivel and cry like a little boy. It had no effect on Frankie, though. The rage that overcame him was too hot to be extinguished by the man’s free-flowing tears.

Frankie had spent the next two days torturing Julian, more mentally than physically, though he had taken a bat to him more than once and beaten him bloody with his bare fists several times. In the end, when Frankie’s fury was finally beginning to dissipate, and he grew weary of looking at Addie’s killer, he’d told him to make peace with his God, held the gun to his forehead, and pulled the trigger without so much as blinking. He’d disposed of his body by dropping it into an abandoned well.

Though the police officially opened an investigation into Julian’s disappearance, when they received an anonymous tip telling them who Julian really was, the investigation seemed to peter out after a couple of weeks. No one appeared to even notice Julian McAllister was gone. No one besides his wife Martha, who was left to raise their infant son all alone. But Frankie couldn’t pretend he felt any remorse for leaving the child fatherless. Any time he thought about it that way, he reminded himself of all the innocent young women he’d tortured and killed, including Addie.